


running out of lives and choices

by misaffection



Category: Farscape
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-08
Updated: 2010-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-08 19:10:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misaffection/pseuds/misaffection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crais said that the measures he took would not kill Talyn, but then he also said when the ship was repaired that it would no longer be Talyn. Not a death, but something... worse? Possibly. She doesn't know, but there is someone that does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	running out of lives and choices

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Averhat as part of the Crais-a-thon (prompt "Crais &amp; Chiana, end of S3 filler involving Talyn being powered down, the plan for a reboot, and the parallels to Nebari mind-cleansing"). Set immediately after IYYY.

Command is silent. Chiana stands close to the viewport, her gaze on the silent ship that drifts alongside Moya. No lights shine within Talyn, and his red-black hull seems duller now that… now that he has been shutdown. Her throat closes over as grief knifes through her and she turns, stumbles blindly to find someone - anyone - with whom she can find comfort.

She finds D’Argo in the refectory, along with Rygel. Hovering in the doorway, she can hear them talking about the meeting with Scorpius. A strange new friendship seems to have formed between them now, no doubt a result of their near-death experience.

“You frellnik,” Rygel says. “I had _everything_ under control. How could you doubt me?”

“Uh, because I _know _you?” D’Argo returns. They laugh and down more raslak, seemingly oblivious to what happened during their absence. They wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t _understand_, and it sickens her. Her stomach roils and she spins away, dashing down the darkened passageway.

In her haste to escape the careless celebration of survival, she crashes into Crichton. He grabs her upper arms with a soft exclamation.

“Whoa, Pip!”

Chiana shakes her head. “No, no, no.”

“What? What’s the matter?”

She stares at him, incredulous as to how he can ask such a thing. Can he not hear the groans that echo through the walls, not hear how Moya grieves for her child, for his confliction and pain?

“T-Talyn,” she breathes.

“Yeah. Aeryn’s pretty devastated.”

With that statement, he shuts _her_ out. Aeryn is devastated, therefore no one else is allowed to be. She swallows and pulls away and touches a golden wall. “What-what about Crais?”

Crichton’s expression tightens and his eyes go hard. “What _about _Crais?”

“Well, Talyn _was _his ship.”

Her attempt to… whatever, fails. Crichton clenches his jaw and looks away. He heaves a sigh and walks off, muttering Aeryn’s name and something else that Chiana doesn’t catch. She stands and watches him go, leaving her behind.

There is no one else she can turn to. Not other than Pilot and she will not intrude on _his _grief. She stumbles to the wall and braces herself. Crais said that the measures he took would not kill Talyn, but then he also said when the ship was repaired that it would no longer _be _Talyn. Not a death, but something… worse? Possibly. She doesn’t know, but there is someone that does. If she cannot find comfort, then at least she can get the answer to the question that torments her.

So she pushes up from the wall and cannons into motion, letting the grief find an outlet in anger. Runs down the passageway, faster and faster as the fury builds. Briefly she thinks that what she’s about to do is not only unwise, but downright dangerous. In the next microt, she decides that she simply doesn’t care.

The door to Crais’ quarters slides open at her rapid approach and she doesn’t stop, doesn’t hesitate as he turns. She screams and launches herself at him, pummels his chest with tight, impotent fists.

“Freller! How _could _you?”

Crais recovers from his shock and captures her wrists. His grasp is firm enough to maintain a hold, but not hard enough to hurt. She makes a futile attempt to struggle against his strength, then opts for kicking at his legs. The tears she failed to shed before now scorch her cheeks.

“How could I do what?” His tone is bemused and she stills, glares at him.

“You _lobotomised _Talyn.”

Grief darkens his face and she sees pain flare in his eyes. Then he releases her wrists and turns away.

“I had no choice.” His tone is flat, his voice hoarse. “No choice whatsoever.”

He walks to the bed and sinks down, the very image of defeat. It startles her, because she’s never/ seen him like this, not even when D’Argo beat him down on his arrival after defecting from the Peacekeepers. She frowns at him, annoyed that he hasn’t responded as she’d expected, annoyed that he’s not fighting her on this when she needs/ an outlet for the emotions raging within her.

“No choice?” She says it dismissively, trying to antagonise him. “No, there’s not. Not if you want to make Talyn obey you, to _conform _to your wishes. Wipe his mind and start over. Reprogram him how _you _want. Peacekeeper dren.”

Crais’ hands curl into fists and he glares at her, but the explosion of rage that she expects does not come. Instead, after a microt, his shoulders sag and he gives a defeated sigh. A terrible bleakness settles on his face.

“What do you wish me to say, Chiana?” he asks then. “Perhaps there is/ little difference between what I plan for Talyn and what your government does it its own people. However, I truly did not have a choice. You witnessed him destroy the Medship, you were there when he fired on his mother/. Surely you see that something had to be done?”

His argument makes too much sense for her _not _ to see, but that does not make it any easier to deal with.

“Did it have to be that, though?” she whispers. Her anger is gone completely, leaving her hollow except for the pain in her chest, in her throat. More tears slide down her face. Crais sighs again.

“The… anomalies of his character are too great for me to correct. There is much that happened whilst we were away from Moya that you are unaware of, things that irreparably harmed Talyn. I have tried, Chiana, really I have. But he was too far gone.”

“So you’ll do this? You’ll w-wipe his mind and _replace _it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

She looks away, her eyes blurring. What she wouldn’t give for a vision now, to see a future for the hybrid ship. But nothing comes and she is left to guess, and she doesn’t like the conclusion that she draws. The odds are stacked high against Talyn, against all of them. She wonders if any of them have a future.

“I-I oversaw his birth.” The words slip out unbidden and now she’s started she cannot stop. “All that weaponry… he was too big. He got stuck and I-I tried to help.”

“I did know. He remembers.” Crais lifts his head and she sees a smile ghost across his mouth “I believe he is still fond of you.”

Chiana holds his gaze and knows he is speaking the truth. But what he means as comfort only serves to make her heartache worse. She licks her lips. “If… _when _you bring him back, will he remember then?”

The smile leaves Crais’ face and he drops his gaze to the floor. He shakes his head, avoiding the question. But she needs the answer and she crosses the room, falling to her knees in front of him like a supplicant before a higher power. He is the only one who can answer her, can possibly save Talyn, and she will… what? What is she willing to give him? Herself. Her own life.

“Yotz,” she breathes, and licks her lips again. She captures his hands. “Crais.”

“I cannot promise anything,” he says in reply, still not looking at her. She releases one hand and reaches out to him, cups his cheek. A soft breath escapes him.

“Will he?”

Crais opens his mouth, closes it again and shakes his head again. “I remember,” he says eventually. “That will have to be enough.”

She frowns. She might not know Crais very well, but she knows when someone is lying or omitting something. “You could share the memory with him. When he is better.”

“Not if I do not reconnect with him.”

His expression is one of bleak defeat. The realisation that he has given up jolts her, swiftly followed by a surge of anger.

“No!” She drops back on her heels, stares at him aghast. “You can’t give up! He _needs _you.”

He snorts, derisive, and his mouth twists into a bitter line. “Oh yes, because I’ve done so _much _ that is good for him.”

Chiana swallows back her anger and looks at him, focusing on his pain now rather than her own. As her vision clears, she can see it haunting his eyes, the hard line of his jaw. She smiles, wan and sad.

“I hated you after you took him,” she tells him then. “You took him from his mother, after everything we’d done to protect him. I thought you’d turn him into a monster.” His face darkens further and she pauses, takes his hand again. “But you didn’t. You tried to protect him. You did more for him than anyone else could.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

There is nothing she can say to that. She doesn’t understand why Talyn has become so violent, so conflicted within himself, just knows that something terrible has happened in the time they have been away, worse even than the other Crichton dying. Aeryn has come back broken, while Stark hasn’t come back at all. Even Rygel seems quieter.

Crais’ eyes are like two holes in the darkness and he grips her hand tightly. Chiana has seen enough hopelessness over the cycles not to recognise it. He is more than grieved - he is damaged in ways she cannot fathom. His grief is a surprise, and she thinks that it shouldn’t be. She wonders if the others would be as surprised, whether any of them has even _considered _him. And immediately remembers Crichton’s response earlier. No one has, because no one cares. Not for him.

He has only Talyn… and her, now.

“If you did all you could… then it was as much as you could. You cannot blame yourself.”

“I should have done more. I should have stopped him destroying the Medship.”

“How?”

“I should have been stronger, overridden his impulses, should have done−”

Knowing that he will go on to blame himself for everything, Chiana surges towards him, silences him the only way she can. His lips taste of salt and raslak, meaning that before she crashed his quarters he had been drinking… and crying. The realisation makes her heart ache and she wraps an arm around his neck.

Crais makes a soft noise deep in his throat, part growl of annoyance, part whimper of distress, and pulls away. She slides her hand from his neck down, holds her hand over his heart.

“You did what you could,” she says then. She strokes his face and he snatches her hand away. However, he holds on rather than releasing it.

“Do you really believe that?”

She does - his anguish is too raw to be false - so she nods. “I do.”

“Then do you accept that I have thought through _every _available possibility? I _had _ to shut Talyn down, Chiana. The only other choice was to destroy him entirely.”

She blinks, not having thought of that/ outcome, and then swallows hard. “Oh,” she manages weakly.

“My final act as Talyn’s captain was to prevent any further death. As his friend I will endeavour to repair him, but if… when he is back online, I will hand over the transponder to someone far more suitable.”

“I don’t think there is/ anyone more suitable, Crais. You and Talyn…” She pauses and gazes into his dark eyes. For a microt, she sees Talyn, wild and out of control, death and destruction left in his wake. A vision of how things would have been with Crais’ input. She shudders and clutches at his hand. “It was meant to be. Without your influence, Talyn would have been wild and even more dangerous.”

He opens his mouth, but then a terribly vulnerable expression crosses his face and he closes it again. “Do you think so?”

“I know so - I saw it.”

“A vision.” His tone holds some scepticism and he arches an eyebrow. “You said that I am going to die.”

“I didn’t see that,” she says and then gives him a wry smile. “I just figured that out from the whole going to Scorpius thing you, Aeryn and Crichton seem intent on doing.”

He winces. Chiana thinks it was on Aeryn’s name and wonders how things lie between the two ex-Peacekeepers. She decides not to ask - some questions are best left unspoken.

“I do not… court my death, but it is a considerable risk. However, if Talyn is/ to be restored, then I must take whatever chance I am offered. And Scorpius _cannot _ be allowed to master wormhole technology. I’ve seen it used as a weapon, Chiana, and it terrified me.”

There is a real horror in his eyes and she shudders. She hasn’t heard a full account of what happened over Dam-Ba-Da, just enough to know that defeating Scorpius is a must. Her grief over Talyn is now almost overwhelmed by fear for Crichton and Aeryn, for herself… and for Crais.

So many events lately have forced her decisions. She hates being forced - it is too much like being under Salis’ command with the threat of mind cleansing hanging over her head. Aeryn has Crichton for comfort. She has no one that would understand, and neither has Crais. Not unless she chooses otherwise.

She licks her lips and slides her hand up his chest to grip his shoulder, using that hold to pull herself off her knees. Crais’ eyes widen as she cups his cheek with her free hand. Yet he neither recoils nor pushes her away. She shifts closer, her lips very close to his and she holds his gaze. Uncertainty flickers in the brown depths of his eyes, wavering with… not quite desire but rather a soul-searing need that she understands all too well.

“Chiana,” he says, a mere whisper. “What I risk… I cannot make promises. Whatever you want−”

Shaking her head, she places a finger over his lips and silences him.

“I just want now. Not what was, not what will be. Just now.” He frowns, and she chuckles softly. “Can you do that Crais, just for once?”

He tilts his head and the ghosting smile is back, fleeting across his mouth, and something of the bleakness leaves his eyes.

“For once,” he agrees and then grabs her, just above the hip, and pulls her in. Chiana looses a soft laugh and straddles his legs, kneeling on the bed and draping both arms around his neck.

“Amazing.”

The second kiss is deliberate and slow.

Chiana feels oddly calm, undoubtedly a product of making a choice, of having control, but not too far from that calmness rages a torrent of grief-fuelled need. She craves the touch of one who feels as she does, as much as she yearns to fill the emptiness that she senses in Crais. Her hands are resting on his shoulders, under her palms his muscles are hard with tension. She nips lightly at his lower lips and runs her hands down his upper arms, trying to push his pain away.

Maybe if he stops hurting, then she will as well.

Her hands find his and she links their fingers. Crais returns his hands to her back, forcing her arms behind her. A thrill ices down her spine and she gasps against his mouth. He chuckles; a low, husky note in the back of his throat, and then darts his tongue out. Tasting/, she realises, and leans in closer, breathes in as he exhales.

For a microt, she is posed, held with her arms pinned behind her back, his tongue making slow passes into her mouth. She closes her eyes and just lets him explore. This is all she can offer him - herself as a meagre measure of comfort - and she knows that she has to let him make his own choice, to accept or refuse it.

He pulls back and meets her eyes, a question in his own. That he will offer her the choice makes her smile, as well as adjust certain opinions about Peacekeepers… or at least ex ones. But if he had never have been different, then Talyn would have been purely a weapon of destruction. And Crais would never have been cut up about the hybrid’s shut down.

“I was wrong about you,” she tells him then. She smiles and shakes her head. “And I’m glad I was.”

With that she regains control, tugging her wrists free from his grasp and clutching at his shoulders as her lips find the pulse point in his neck. He gives a muted moan and trembles. Blood pounds under her mouth, rapid and hot. He is warm and beating and breathing and frell/. She gasps as pain rips upwards and blinks back tears. A sob escapes from her throat.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and holds her close, cradling her head with one hand.

She rests her head on his shoulder. “What for?”

“For what I _had _ to do. Given another choice…”

“I know.” She does, now. She lets out a defeated sigh. “But there wasn’t.”

“But−”

“No buts, Crais,” she says and then slides the fastener of his jacket down. “Stop asking questions, stop apologising. Stop trying to make it _right_. It’s not and I’m not and neither are you.”

“Does this make it right?”

She snorts and kisses him hard. Slips her tongue into his mouth and teases until he responds in kind, then she breaks away. He is breathing hard. As is she.

“It’s not about right,” she whispers. “It’s about need. I need… this, for now. If you didn’t, then you’d have thrown me out already.”

He shrugs a shoulder, accepting that accusation. “I never said I didn’t want you.”

“So?”

“I’ve stopped asking,” he says and reaches for her again.

“Good,” she manages before he claims her mouth.

His kiss is hungry, demanding, and there is a distinct bulge in his trousers. She grinds down and he groans, his hands grasping at her hips. His hold is tight to the point of painfulness and likely to leave bruises, but she doesn’t care, because it distracts her from the hollow sensation in her chest.

She slips her hands under the fabric of his coat, pushing it off broad shoulders that are corded with taut muscles. The coat slides off his arms and falls to the bed with a soft thump. One arm unwinds from around her back and shifts the coat to the floor, but she is far too busy investigating the bare, tan skin to really notice.

He is leaner than she’d imagined. There are hollows under his collar bone, but what captures her attention are the marks across his chest. Some are silver, old. But those that are recently healed do not look like anything she’s seen before. She traces one with a finger and frowns.

“What happened?”

“Talyn did. Sometimes, when he was highly agitated, his emotions would bleedback through the transponder.”

“And caused this?” She pulls back, horrified, unable to quite grasp what he is saying. She cannot imagine the amount of mental pain it takes to cause physical symptoms. “For how long?”

“Over half a cycle.”

“But you… he…” The transponder is still at the back of his neck; she knows that because she’s felt it. “So you _knew_ that he was… and you stayed connected?”

Crais sighs. “I chose to. I believed that some guidance was better than none. Whatever the cost.”

The cost is clear and when he tugs her close once more, she tenses, afraid that she will hurt him further. His mouth quirks up at one corner.

“Am I too ugly to need now?” he says, a dry humour to his tone. Chiana recovers herself.

“No, I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His lips trace a line from her collarbone to just under her ear, then he nips at the lobe. She jolts and he chuckles. “Pain lets us know we’re still alive, Chiana.”

“Then I’m very much alive.”

“I know.”

His quiet acceptance of their situation brings a lump to her throat. She drapes her arms about his shoulders and nestles her face in the crook of his neck. Letting her eyes close, she breathes in salt and musk and leather. A sigh stirs her hair and a hand smoothes down her spine. It brings no comfort: her mind can still see Talyn floating lifelessly, can still imagine those dearest to her dead at Scorpius’ hands. Fear is a copper taste on her tongue, and her heart bangs a painful rhythm in her chest.

But the pain lets her know that death, though close, has not come yet. She needs to keep it at bay for a little while longer, needs to live for now. So she grabs Crais’ ponytail and twists his head round, meeting his lips with her own. She makes a demand, and he gives - his hands cup her eema and squeeze, then slide up her back once more, under/ her top. Skin to skin contact and she needs more.

She pushes down on his arms, easing herself away long enough to tug the top over her head. His gaze is appropriately appreciative and she arches her back as his hands cover her breasts. Drops her head back as he kneads. His thumbs circle her nipples, sending thrill after thrill coursing through her veins. Gooseflesh raises over the skin of her arms and chest. Heat pools in her stomach. It’s still not enough.

“More,” she says and shoves so he falls onto his back on the bed. Her fingers fumble with the fastener of his trousers, finally managing to tug it down and she slips her hand inside, wraps it around his hard cock. Crais gasps and his eyes darken.

“Yes.”

Her legs are trembling and barely hold her weight as she stands. She sits down hard and tears at the laces of her boots, somehow managing to undo them. She pulls her feet out and stands again, one hand on the wall to brace herself as she removes her trousers. Crais makes no attempt to help her, or to undress himself, just watches her with a heated gaze. She smirks at him.

“I thought Peacekeepers were against inter-racial relations,” she says archly.  
     
“They are.” He props on one elbow and holds his other hand out to her. She takes it and lets him pull her back to the bed. “But you forget two things - first, that I am not a Peacekeeper any longer. Second, that I have had some considerable time to re-examine such beliefs.”

“And your conclusion?” she asks, clambering onto the bed and positioning herself over him.

“That there is much to recommend inter-racial _relations_.”

Chiana chuckles and kisses him, slow and languishing. “Isn’t there, though?”

She pins him to the mattress, hands above his head, and leans down until her lips are a mere dench from his. His erection juts out the opening in his trousers and she lowers herself down so that the tip of his cock is against her sex. He strains upwards, trying to penetrate, but she does not allow that. Not yet. She wants to draw out his anticipation, to heighten the sensations.

“_Isn’t _ there?” she demands again, and rocks her hips to tease him further.

Crais closes his eyes and a groan escapes him. “Yes.”

It’s a mere whisper, not enough. She glares at him; an impotent gesture since his eyes are squeezed shut, and shifts her hips. The head of his cock slips in, just slightly. Enough that his eyes fly open. Enough that he voices a soft groan.

Enough that when she lifts up, disappointment floods his expression.

“Say it _louder_, Crais,” she orders him.

“Yes!” he gasps, harsh and loud.

He gasps again as she sinks down to take him in and his hands clench at thin air. Yet he makes no attempt to free himself, though the muscles in his arms are thick cords of tension. That he is letting her control what happens is touching, and she wonders if he knows how much it means to her.

She gives him a smile and slides her hands down his arms, effectively releasing him. He still does not move. She frowns slightly and leans forward again, feathering light kisses over his mouth before sucking at his lower lip.

It takes her teeth biting down to cannon him into motion and he grabs the back of her head with one hand, holding her in place as his tongue raids her mouth. His other hand fastens on her hip and pushes up then pulls her down again, making her ride him. He dictates the pace, quicker and harder, until she has to break the kiss so she can heave oxygen into her lungs.

The friction of body against body builds a different tension, one that is comforting in its familiarity. She shifts frantically, up and down, up and down, until it shatters over her skin, through her veins. Trembling, she moans softly and nestles against his chest, face in the crook of his neck. He is still hard, but she is too emotionally, physically spent to give him what he needs now.

“_Chiana_,” he says and she nods once, a broken jerk of her head.

“Yes.”

“Can I…?”

“_Yes_.”

He rolls them over, then disengages from her. She watches him stand and remove the rest of his clothing. Frowns as he bends down and scoops her up effortlessly. He repositions her on the bed, ensuring her comfort. She smiles when she realises this, makes yet another adjustment to her opinion of this man - gentleness isn’t something she thought him capable of. She wonders who amongst those that returned have seen it. If _Aeryn_ has seen it.

Chiana looks into Crais’ eyes. He gazes back and smiles slightly, but says nothing. She supposes that there is little either of them _can_ say. She knows exactly what this is about, and so does he. They both chose this, and she at least does not regret it. And as he slides back inside her and immediately takes to a rapid pace, she knows he doesn’t regret it either.

He buries his head against her shoulder, and she gets the sense he is hiding from the universe beyond this room, from the things that hang dangerously over him. She arches upwards, one hand sliding down his sweat-slicked back to pull him in deep, to let him feel all of her, letting him lose himself in the same familiar sensations she/ did. Grips him as he thrusts harder, trying to protect him from the uncertain future.

The tang of salt is heavy on her tongue; sweat and tears, grief and sex. She closes her eyes and grinds her hips, bringing Crais to completion. He shudders violently and a searing heat fills her. She gasps as he groans softly, and accepts his weight when he collapses on top of her, spent.

Wrung out.

And she feels his heart beating against her ribs, out of time with hers. His fluids mix with hers, and flow out to seep into the mattress, the heat cooling, draining away like the time left to them.

_“You’re all going to die.”_ Her own words. And Crichton had asked her if she saw that future.

She doesn’t see Crais’ death… but she doesn’t see his survival either. There is nothing, just haze. She isn’t sure if she’s glad about that or not. If she could handle knowing/ his fate.

“Crais,” she says as he gently pulls away and drops to the bed at her side. She turns to him. His face is half in shadow, impossible to read. She pushes up on her elbow and rescues the cover from the end of the bed, draws it over them both before curling close to him. She doesn’t want to be alone, doesn’t want him to be alone either. “Promise me something?”

“I cannot promise anything,” he says, his tone gentle. “I told you that before.”

“You can. You can promise me that you won’t… _try _to die.”

Crais smiles and threads his fingers through her hair, then leans over to place a kiss in the middle of her forehead. She tilts her head as he lies back down, waiting for him to answer.

“That… yes, I can promise you that.”

“Good,” she says and rewards him by grabbing his wrist and pulling his hand down to kiss the palm. Tomorrow, the insane plan will go into action, bringing whatever future fate decides. Right now though, she/ makes the choices. She guides his hand down, under the sheet, and places it between her legs.

“_Again_?” he asks.

“You had something better to do?”

“Come to think of it, no.”

“Didn’t think so.”

Shortly after that, she realises his protest was very much superficial.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Over the Line and on to Borrowed Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/94925) by [Arevhat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arevhat/pseuds/Arevhat)




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